Since the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, when farmers of Scottish and Irish descent tarred and feathered government excise collectors, Kentuckians have fought hard for their bourbon. Federal law makes it very clear that unless your whiskey is made from a mash containing 51 percent to 79 percent corn and produced and stored for at least one of its two years of aging in Kentucky, you can't call it Kentucky bourbon. But if a recent study conducted for the Commonwealth of Kentucky is correct, global warming may soon make it impossible to produce good Kentucky bourbon -- at least in Kentucky.

According to the author, Mike Jones, a researcher at American University, a bourbon's distinctive Kentucky flavor comes from the seasonal warming and cooling of the whiskey during its aging. This is done in white oak barrels that have been "toasted" in order to caramelize the sugars in the wood and then charred on the inside to impart flavor to the whiskey during storage. "When the temperature rises in the summer, the bourbon expands," Jones says, "and with lower temperatures in the winter, it contracts. This movement gives the bourbon its amber color and oak flavor."

Producers consider these temperature variations so critical that during the course of their storage, barrels are shifted from the lower racks in the warehouse to the upper racks. However, the 3-degree Fahrenheit average temperature increase predicted for the state over the next 100 years will mean less variation between winter and summer temperatures. The study's sorry conclusion: "In the future, global warming may affect the weather patterns which are essential in Kentucky for the aging process."

I'm not giving up my dead dino burning Harley or pick-up truck any time soon.

Hopfully I'm dead before we stop using gasoline and being able to drive 1950's and 1960's cars if we want to.

If you're in your 60s maybe, otherwise I think you will ge here for the demise of gasoline.

not likely ... the amount of oil in siberia ... is like 3 times that of the oil in the middle east ... we got plenty of dino juice ....

Not to mention all the sandy oil deposits that have been too costly to bother with, trust me, they'll figure a way to turn tar pits and those other low grade deposits into gasoline (they're already workin' on it), once it becomes profitable to do it, you wont be able to keep BP and Exxon/Mobile outta there. Look out for arctic drilling, Alaskan North coast and front range (those jobs will have to pay a quarter mill a year, with 5 months off to get anyone to go), as well as more exploration inland. ANWAR is just the beginning. Alaska will be swiss cheese before we convert to solar or Hydrogen (and our great granchildren will be sharing the planet with 10 billion other souls while drinking the last of the Kentucky Bourbon at our wakes). Cheers to fossil fuels, look on the bright side, maybe global warming will make Minnesota a better place to live! :wink:

As for the Whiskey, they'll just move production North and call it Kentucky style and everything will be OK. Yankee Bourbon, that'll have Robert E. Lee turning in his grave...while Ulysses S. Grant chuckles.